Adverse Possession Read online

  Then again, if Virgil was sitting pretty here, with Kenny, in a house that was just as nice as the one he’d given up, why would he bother? It wasn’t like Aislynn and Kylie had cheated him out of anything.

  I dropped the mail back into the box and dusted my hands, as if I could rub off the feeling of having broken the law. There was still no answer from within the house. I gave the door one last knock, waited, and was on my way toward the porch steps when I heard the lock tumble.

  I swung around on my heel, just as the door opened.

  The man on the doorstep looked horrible. He was almost as tall as Rafe—several inches over six feet—but with very little of Rafe’s bulk. He was lanky, with reddish-blond hair that stood straight up, and bloodshot eyes. Freckles stood out sharply against pale skin. And while he was probably naturally pale—most redheads are—this wasn’t a normal pallor. He looked sick. Or hung over.

  “Virgil?” I said tentatively.

  He closed his eyes for a second, as if my voice had hurt his head. I was leaning toward hung over, although that was a sad thing to contemplate at three in the afternoon.

  “I’m Kenny.”

  His voice was rusty, like he hadn’t used it much lately, or like he smoked a pack a day. He didn’t smell so good, either, now that I had moved closer. Someone looked like they hadn’t had a shower in a day or two, and it wasn’t me. The reason the red hair stuck up was probably because it was dirty.

  “I’m Savannah Martin,” I said, making sure my voice was low and soothing. “I work for LB&A. Lamont, Briggs and Associates. Real estate. Virgil used one of our agents to sell his house last January.”

  Kenny nodded.

  “I was hoping to be able to ask him a couple of questions about it.”

  “Can’t,” Kenny said.

  “He isn’t here?”

  Kenny shook his head. And it must have hurt, because he closed his eyes again, and this time I swear I saw moisture at the corners of his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, while I thought to myself that maybe he shouldn’t have drunk so much last night. “Maybe I should leave and come back another time. When do you expect him back?”

  Kenny opened his eyes. They were a vivid turquoise blue, made brighter by the fact that they were swimming with tears.

  That, and the fact that they were severely bloodshot.

  “I don’t,” he said.

  And without giving me the chance to say anything else, he closed the door in my face.

  Oops.

  I stared at it, open-mouthed, for a second before I turned and scurried down the stairs and through the yard as fast as I could. Embarrassed, yes, but I also felt bad on his behalf. Virgil must have left him, and now Kenny was drowning his sorrows in alcohol.

  Really, I reflected as I unkeyed the door and slipped behind the wheel of the Volvo, Virgil didn’t have much staying power, did he? It was only six months since he’d left Stacy. And how he’d left Kenny, too?

  Hit-and-run Virgil Wright. One of those guys who left a trail of broken hearts in his wake, it seemed.

  Unfortunately, now I didn’t know where to find him, so I couldn’t ask him about the letters.

  And after my encounter with Kenny, I could tell that he wasn’t in any kind of mood to tell me anything.

  And I only had eighteen more hours to figure out what was going on before I had to face Aislynn and Kylie over breakfast.

  I sat in the car and made a mental list of what I had found out and what I still needed to do.

  I had spoken to Kylie, who suspected Aislynn’s parents of being behind the letters. But they lived in Kentucky, and the letters had been posted right here in East Nashville, at the post office four blocks from Aislynn and Kylie’s house. Unless Aislynn’s mother or father commuted to Nashville every week or two, chances were they weren’t behind any of this. Entirely apart from the fact that I had a hard time believing that anyone’s parents would be so callous.

  Aislynn suspected Kylie, or Kylie’s ex-girlfriend Lauren. I knew nothing about Lauren, but I’d have to find out. And I had no idea how. Kylie had done a good job of keeping us apart at lunch, and it wasn’t like I could tell her what Aislynn thought, was it?

  Stacy had been forced to leave the house against his will when he and Virgil broke up. He might feel resentful of the women who were now living in his old home. But it wasn’t like he’d get the house back if he scared Aislynn away. The house was beyond his means; he’d said so. So even if it went back on the market, he wouldn’t be able to buy it.

  And Virgil was in the wind. I had no idea where to find him.

  Although I did have his phone number. It had been a few hours since I’d tried to call. Maybe this time he’d answer.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed. The phone rang a couple of times. Then a male voice said, “Yes?”

  It sounded familiar. Probably because I’d heard it on the recording earlier.

  “Hi,” I said, endeavoring to sound friendly. “This is Savannah Martin, and—”

  The voice interrupted me. “I already told you,” it said. “He’s gone. And if you don’t stop harassing me and get the hell away from my house, I’m calling the police.”

  The next thing I heard was the click as the call was disconnected.

  Chapter Six

  Huh.

  So Virgil was gone but Kenny still had his phone.

  Shit. I mean... shoot. I had obviously misinterpreted something. Something vital.

  When Kenny said that Virgil was gone, and wasn’t coming back, he didn’t mean that Virgil had left him.

  He meant that Virgil was dead.

  I drove back to the office in something close to shock—not only had I not known, and not expected it, I had unwittingly broken all rules of proper conduct by intruding on Virgil’s nearest and dearest in their time of grief, not to mention that I had chalked that grief up to Kenny being hung over.

  Not a stellar afternoon on my part.

  But at least I could break the news to Tim. Depending on when it had happened, he might already know, but maybe he didn’t. I hadn’t heard any talk about it, and considering that Virgil had been one of our clients, someone ought to have mentioned it.

  Tim’s car was back in the lot, and he was in his office. I knocked on the open door and waited for him to acknowledge me.

  “Oh,” he said. “It’s you again.”

  I stepped through the doorway. “Do you have a minute?”

  He had been in the process of writing, and now he put the pen down. “Is this about your anonymous letters again?”

  Yes and no. “It’s about one of your clients.”

  “My clients?”

  I nodded. “Remember that transaction we did together over Christmas? The Victorian house?”

  “Virgil and Stacy’s place,” Tim said. “Are those two girls the ones getting the letters?”

  There didn’t seem to be any sense in lying about it anymore. “Yes. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Tim’s brows drew together.

  “I went to talk to Virgil and Stacy,” I said. “To see if they’d ever gotten any weird letters. If maybe that was the reason they’d decided to sell.”

  Tim sounded offended. “They’d have told me if they did!”

  Maybe, maybe not. Besides, I couldn’t trust that Tim would have told me. Client-realtor privilege, and all that. Confidentiality.

  “Did you know that they aren’t together anymore?”

  “Sure,” Tim said readily. “That’s why they were selling the house. Virgil was moving in with his new boyfriend, and Stacy couldn’t afford to keep the place by himself.”

  Right. “Well, I tried to track them both down today. And I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but...”

  “Oh, my Lord Jesus!” Tim exclaimed, turning pale. He slapped a hand to his chest, right on top of the baby blue silk shirt. “He’s dead!”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad new
s...”

  Tim was palpitating. Visibly. “I feel so guilty. It’s just a couple days since I saw him. If I’d had any idea...”

  “I’m sure there was nothing you could have done,” I said, although I had no idea.

  “How did it happen?”

  “I’m not sure. I thought maybe you...?”

  Tim shook his head. “I had no idea. He didn’t seem like anything was wrong. Certainly not like he was thinking of...” He swallowed.

  I wasn’t sure if Virgil had taken his own life or not. I had hoped maybe Tim knew something, but it seemed not.

  “I feel like I should have realized something was wrong,” he whimpered. “Nothing seemed off the other night. He seemed happy. He flirted with me! But he was so distraught back then. Losing not just his boyfriend, but his home...”

  “Wasn’t it his decision?” If Virgil was moving in with Kenny, surely it was Virgil who had wanted the breakup to happen?

  “Of course not,” Tim said. “It was Virgil’s decision.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  We stared at one another for a second, across the desk.

  “Isn’t it Stacy who’s dead?” Tim asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Virgil’s dead?!”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, my God!” Tim slumped.

  “So let me get this straight. You thought it was Stacy who was dead? That he’d killed himself because Virgil dumped him?”

  Tim nodded, fanning himself with his hand.

  “He was that distraught?”

  “Back when it happened, he was pretty upset. He was crazy about Virgil. And yeah, maybe he liked Virgil’s money, too. And the house. But he was devastated when Virgil kicked him to the curb.”

  “It’s no fun to find out that your significant other is cheating,” I said, since I’d been in just that position with my first husband. Bradley had married his paralegal, Shelby, less than two weeks after our divorce was final.

  “No kidding,” Tim told me. “I figured if one of them had died, it would have been Stacy. Virgil had no reason to end it all. He was happy. New boyfriend. New house. Plenty of money.”

  While Stacy lived in a crappy rental in South Nashville and poured drinks for a living. Tim must have spent the night at South Street Bar recently, and seen him there.

  “I’m not sure anyone ended anything,” I told Tim. “I have no idea what happened. Kenny—the new boyfriend—wasn’t forthcoming. He said he’d call the cops if I didn’t leave him alone. But for all I know it was a traffic accident. Or an aneurism. Or a heart attack.”

  “He was my age!” Tim said.

  So maybe not a heart attack. Although I guess it could happen to a man in his mid-thirties. I’m sure it has sometime, somewhere.

  “I really don’t know,” I said. “And I didn’t know Virgil,” or Kenny, “so I’m sure he won’t tell me anything.”

  “Maybe he’ll tell me,” Tim said, and started flipping through his Rolodex. I sank onto one of the chairs in front of the desk. He hadn’t invited me to stick around, but if he found out something, I’d like to know about it. I mean, that’s partly why I’d told him, so he could try to figure out what had happened.

  I guess it was sort of crazy to wonder if Virgil had been driven to suicide by anonymous letters, but under the circumstances, it might not be as crazy as otherwise. And if there was a connection to Aislynn and Kylie, I wanted to know about it.

  So I sat and waited while Tim found the number and dialed. And then I waited for the phone to be answered. And after that I waited for Tim to introduce himself. And that was all it took for the person on the other end of the line to start yapping. I couldn’t make out the words, but the thrust of the monologue was pretty obvious, especially when Tim glanced at me with a grimace. “Yes. I’m sorry about that.”

  Kenny—I assumed it was Kenny—talked some more.

  “I’m sorry,” Tim said again. “I just wanted to verify something she told me...”

  Kenny kept talking.

  “About Virgil,” Tim said loudly. “What happened to Virgil?”

  Kenny talked. And this time Tim didn’t try to interrupt him, just listened. I shifted on my chair, annoyed that I couldn’t hear anything. Kenny’s voice was a whining drone, but I couldn’t make out the words he said.

  “When?” Tim asked.

  Kenny talked for another minute.

  “When?” Tim said again.

  Kenny answered.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Kenny must have said no, or maybe he told Tim that the best thing he could do was not call back, because Tim’s lips tightened and his eyes turned hard. “Thank you for your time,” he said, and stabbed the disconnect button with his finger. I just won’t repeat the word he directed at the phone after turning it off.

  “I’m sure he’s distraught,” I said apologetically, as if it were my fault. In a sense, maybe it was. I had contacted Kenny first, and now Tim was bearing the brunt of the temper I had stirred up.

  Tim scowled at me.

  “What did he say?” I added.

  Tim looked like he wasn’t sure he wanted to share it with me—I mentioned we don’t always get along—but in the end, he did. “Virgil died two days ago. Hit over the head with something while he was out jogging in Shelby Park. The police think it’s random violence.”

  So not only was Kenny devastated, it was fresh devastation. Two days ago. Wow.

  And then my mind started ticking.

  “Why would anyone mug a jogger? It’s not like he’d be carrying any money.” Or even be wearing a fancy Rolex. I’ve heard of people getting killed for their sneakers, but that was a while ago, and surely didn’t apply to grown men out for a run in a city park.

  “Hate crime,” Tim said.

  “How would anyone know he was gay?” It isn’t like you can tell by the way someone jogs. “Did he look gay?”

  “Not particularly,” Tim said. “Stacy was definitely the twinkie in that relationship.”

  Thanks to a visit to a gay leather-bar once—don’t ask—I knew what that meant: a young, pretty gay guy. Nice to look at, but no substance.

  “Or maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have seen,” Tim added. “Like a drug deal gone wrong.”

  Quite possible. All sorts of shady dealings go on in the parks.

  “But he didn’t kill himself.”

  “No,” Tim said, and sounded disappointed.

  So there was probably no connection whatsoever to my—or to Aislynn and Kylie’s—threatening letters.

  “The funeral’s tomorrow,” Tim added.

  “Someone should go.”

  He looked at me, and I added, “He was a client. Of the brokerage. If you don’t have time, I can do it.”

  Tim shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

  “You don’t want to?”

  “I’ve got better things to do on a Saturday,” Tim said. “I don’t even know Kenny. And it’s not like Virgil cares.”

  Maybe not. But— “What about Stacy?”

  “Ooooh,” Tim said, his eyes lighting with maliciousness. “Now that might be fun. Stacy and Kenny facing off over the body.”

  I winced. That wasn’t what I had meant, and secondly, the picture his words had painted was quite vivid and uncomfortable. But now that he had put the image in my mind, I could sort of see the appeal of it. However— “I’m sure it won’t be an open casket.”

  “I don’t care,” Tim said. “I might have to make time for this after all.”

  And so might I. I hadn’t known any of the parties involved, but aside from the sheer ghoulish appeal of seeing Stacy and Kenny squaring off over their dead lover, I was curious. The letters to Aislynn and Kylie had threatened physical harm. And now the previous owner of the house where the letters were sent had been killed. Violently.

  I got to my feet. “Thanks for finding out what happened. Maybe I’ll see you at the funeral.”

  Tim nodded. And although
he didn’t say anything else, I could feel his speculative gaze on my back as I made my way to the door and out.

  I left the office after that. I wanted to get away from Tim, and I didn’t really want to make the next phone call from a place where he could overhear me. So I got into the car, turned the AC on, and told myself I was waiting for the interior to cool down before I drove away, and in the interrim, I might as well call Tamara Grimaldi and ask her what, if anything, she knew about Virgil Wright’s death.

  It took a couple of rings before she picked up. Then—“Ms... Savannah.”

  “Detective,” I said.

  “Everything OK?”

  “Fine.” I told her what had transpired so far today, since the last time I talked to her. My talks with Kylie and Aislynn, my visit to Stacy’s apartment. For good measure, I threw in Rafe’s appearance, too. She didn’t say anything about it, but I’m pretty sure she was amused. I figured she would be; that’s why I’d mentioned it.

  “I wanted to know if you could tell me anything about what happened to Virgil,” I added. “If he was mugged—or beaten up, or hit over the head—in the park, that’d be suspicious circumstances, right? And you’d be involved?”

  “Not personally,” Grimaldi said, and I could hear the sound of a keyboard from the other end of the line, “but I can check and see who caught the case and maybe have a word with him or her. And maybe mention the letters.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection?”

  “Not likely,” Grimaldi said, “but you never know. That’s why you called me, right?”

  She didn’t wait for me to answer, just added, “Here we go. Detective Mendoza got that one.”

  The name sounded familiar, but it took me a second to place it. “That really good-looking guy my mother suggested I marry when Rafe didn’t show up at the courthouse? We met him at the Germantown Café for lunch?”

  Grimaldi’s voice was dry. “That’s him.”

  “Sorry. But he is good-looking.”

  “Believe me,” Grimaldi said, “I know it.”

  Uh-oh. “You don’t have a thing for him, do you?” That wouldn’t make my brother happy. “Or a past with him, or anything like that?”